September 3, 2012
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Speaking of the school year . . .
Wanna know what our official school plans are for this year?
I’m teaching two courses in Christology at [nearby private, church-affiliated college]. I’m having them read Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, Prothero’s American Jesus, Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love, and Athanasius’s On The Incarnation, along with bunches of other articles and Biblical readings.
I’m also Finishing The Diss, Dammit.
Isaac is in tenth grade at [nearby private high school], taking Spanish, Pre-Calc, Literary Genres, US History, Chemistry, and Bible (poor dear), and is in three musical ensembles. I’m not impressed with the reading list in English, and I’m preparing to be good and appalled when Bible rolls around in the Spring.
Theo is going to preschool at the preschool at Stephen’s church. He’ll be in Miss Sandy’s room. They’re doing reading readiness, art, number awareness, and beginning handwriting. We’ll probably do a little homeschooling with him in the afternoons, since he’s the sort that needs lots and lots of activity to keep him from blowing up the parsonage. We’re still in negotiations as to which math program we might use (the anti-Saxon feeling here is strong, but One Of Us thinks he’ll take to it better than he will Singapore, the other strong contender). We’re using a reading list from The Well-Trained Mind for reading, and Draw Write Now for handwriting and art. He has lots of tree climbing, sports, and Just Being Silly planned for the year, as well.
Amos will be taking Advanced Infant Skills (Accelerated Track). Last year, in Beginning Infant Skills (Accelerated Track), we let him slide with a few B+’s (in sleeping, getting a diaper change without crawling away, and staying away from electrical outlets). We’ve let him know that we have higher expectations of him this year. He’ll be working on Motor Skills (Preliminary Steps), Linguistics (Directed Babbling), Engineering (Structures With Four to Six Blocks), and Health (Eating, plus Advanced Diaper Change Notification Skills). We’re trying to get him in a musical ensemble (Advanced Screechers), but there isn’t an opening for a Baby Basso Profundo at the moment, and I just don’t think he has the range for Baby Tenor.
What are you teaching, learning, writing, or otherwise working on this year?
Comments (5)
I’m so excited about the new school year! My daughter is preparing for her last year (6th grade) at the alternative in-the-woods hippie private school she attends. It is bittersweet to think we won’t be there next year. And my son is on your Isaac’s heels – he will be starting 9th grade at a new private high school! We are so excited and thankful he is able to attend and they are starting the school year off with an all-high school rafting/camping trip this week. Instant new friends. So far, I am impressed with the English reading list, but I have not yet seen the plan for History…
Oh, and you WILL DO IT with the dissertation!! Good luck!
I would recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Counting-Activities-Kindergarten/dp/1605540293/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1346711415&sr=8-5&keywords=preschool+math#_ You don’t want to be doing a lot of pencil and paper work at this age.
As for me, I’m teaching a Unit on Sound and a Unit on Community. Later we’ll be doing the solar system because my third graders complained we didn’t do that last year. We’ll talk about the election (I think it is required.) We visit The Man in the Map again. We’ve got a lot of work to do with Sight Words and Phonics and Comprehension. We’ll tackle all the math Themes: two digit addition and subtraction, multiplication, fractions, time, money, algebra, geometry, number sense, graphs, and lots and lots of story problems. Then we’ll try to understand Grammar and write a few dozen papers. And wrap it all up with handwriting and computer skills.
I may have missed something in that list. But I’ll teach that too.
I LOVE reading what you guys are up to in your neck of the woods.
I’m teaching two sections of Intro to OT and two sections of Religion in America this fall. Chad’s teaching the two honors sections of Intro to OT.
Cady is attending a local Montessori school and Davis is at a local Baptist daycare trying to cath up with Amos
Cady loves games (especially if they are on the computer) so I’ve been trying to find online games that will help her practice reading and math. She knows all of her letter sounds, but prefers to memorize all words as if they are sight words so I’m trying to help her gain confidence in her sounding out abilities.The exercises on this website are super repetitive, but she doesn’t seem to mind: http://www.scootpad.com/ I like it because it’s based on the new “common core” and because it is ad-free. This one, http://www.cookie.com/, is “busier,” but it’s got more “fun” games. You can sort by grade level, which is helpful. Cady’s not quite ready for me to set her up and leave her with either of these, but it’s been a fun thing for us to do together at night before reading books and the rest of the bedtime routine.
Oh, and I’m finishing my diss too dangit!
Thanks, Mandy, for sharing those websites–they look great!
Thanks, Tiff, for the kind words. I *will* triumph!
And thanks, DM, for the book suggestion! I’ll look it up!